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« Defining a conflict of interest | Main | Viva la Mama! Berlusconi Bis - a government shaken, not stirred. »

April 20, 2005

Pope Benedict XVI - identity correction?

It would be unfair to suggest that this Monkey was entirely opposed to the election of Pope Benedict XVI. Al contrario thanks to some careful scrutiny of form, leading to a judicious bet on Ratzinger with Paddy Powers, the new Pope has earned me the princely sum of €19.50.

Within 10 minutes of the announcement from St. Peter's, the Ratzinger fan club site was experiencing problems no doubt due to heavy traffic.

The recently registered www.benedictxvi.com was also no doubt getting plenty of hits. Wired magazine reported today that a Florida man, Rogers Cadenhead, had bought the domain name on April 1st 2005, along with a number of other papal possibilities. Cadenhead, a baptised Catholic and writer, stresses that he hasn't registered the name for speculative purposes, but rather from a geeky impulse.

Perhaps he should consider giving it over to the Yes Men. Ratzinger, once remarked to the press that he was "convinced that the constant presence in the press of the sins of Catholic priests, especially in the United States, is a planned campaign, as the percentage of these offenses among priests is not higher than in other categories, and perhaps it is even lower". He'd probably accuse me of 'relativism' here when I point out that, while it may be true that priests do not form a higher percentage of paedophile offenders (he didn't cite any figures here), it's also true that paedophile priests have had the protection of a multinational institution, of which he has just become leader. An insanely anti-clerical media didn't dream up the instances where Bishops and religious orders knowingly transferred priests, such as Ireland's Fr. Brendan Smyth accused of the sexual abuse of minors to new parishes and new contact with children. Rather than blaming the media for public outrage about priestly abuse of power, perhaps he needs to look at the institutional character of the Church.

Papa Ratzinger, who obviously understands the power structure of the Church intricately, seems confused about the character of his institution. For this he seems ripe for a spot of identity correction*.


*Identity correction, as practised by the Yes Men, has been defined as to "help troublesome organizations take their institutional logic to its rational extremes, exposing the realities of unmitigated corporate capitalism, corrupt political regimes and other really bad ideas".

Posted by 3Monkeys at April 20, 2005 11:17 AM

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